At the Start
by SoftballSuperhero
Summary: Peter adjusting to his powers before the events of Spider-Man: Homecoming. I'm not sure what category to put this under, but Tom Holland's Spider-Man is in the MCU, so we're going with Avengers.
1. Chapter 1

_Holy crap._

 _Holy CRAP._

 _HOLY FRICK FRACKING CRAP._

Peter Parker was on the ceiling.

How was he on the ceiling? He had no idea.

Well, he had some idea. He knew how he got there, one sticky hand at a time, but he wasn't sure _how_ he got there. People couldn't just attach themselves to ceilings.

This had to be a dream, a very strange dream. Everything else had to be a dream then too, right? The glasses, the dodgeball game, this _situation_. Peter's entire day had been full of strange occurrences but _this_? Let's just say he was thankful Aunt May workin late today.

Shaking himself into the reality of his situation, strange as it was, Peter took a few deep breathes and tried to figure out _how the hell he got on the ceiling!_

It took him a while, but Peter finally calmed down. Refocusing, he imagined his fingers peeling off the water-stained ceiling of his small bedroom. Instantly, his hands detached and he felt himself drop; mostly. His bare feet still held firmly to the ceiling, seemingly mocking him. Great. Now Peter was stuck, scared, _and_ upside down.

Arms dangling, Peter attempted to unstick his right foot to no avail. He tried again, this time using more force. Nothing. Finally, Peter pulled his leg toward the ground using all his might. This worked, technically. The only problem was now Peter had a hole in his room and a chunk of ceiling plastered on the bottom of his right foot. Oh, and he was still hanging like a rag doll thanks to his left foot, which might as well been superglued next to the ceiling fan.

Now more determined than confused, Peter tried to dislodge his left foot by jumping from the ceiling to the ground. This attempt worked surprisingly well, and he ended up in a heap on the floor. His head collided with the edge of his desk and Peter let out a small yelp of pain.

"Everything alright in there?" Aunt May called from the kitchen.

Crap, May. She couldn't know about this, she'd freak! Peter glanced up at his damaged ceiling and decided to keep whatever just happened under wraps. At least until he figured it out for himself. The last thing he needed was to be poked, tested, and worried over by dozens of doctors.

May entered Peter's room to find him sitting on the floor, rubbing his forehead.

"What happened? I heard you fall, did you hit your head?" May's words were laced with concern. It comforted Peter, but also worried him. If May was this concerned over a little bump on the head, imagine how she'd react if she knew how he got it.

"I'm fine, I just tripped," Peter sputtered out. His voice was shaky from his nerves and he feared May would pick up on his lie. Peter snuck his right foot, the one with bits of ceiling coating it, under a hoody laying next to him on the floor.

She gave him a bit of a side eye, like she knew he wasn't telling the whole truth, before glancing around his messy room. Thank goodness her eyes never drifted far enough up to catch the hole in the ceiling.

"No wonder you tripped-this room is a mess!" May scolded. Then her "serious parent face" fell and was replaced with an amused smile. Peter always had been a bit clumsy.

"Alright kid," May consoled, "let's go to the kitchen and get you some ice before your head bruises."

On the way to the freezer, Peter thanked the universe that no more of his appendages got stuck to furniture.


	2. Chapter 2

"Really May, I'm fine."

Peter gave his aunt his most convincing look, which was not very convincing, to ensure his safety and get her to stop hovering over him. She wasn't buying his claims; the kid's head seemed to be throbbing. The large bruise was forming over Peter's left eye was already turning a sickly yellow. He might even have a concussion, but May Parker had already ran a few cognitive tests and Peter wasn't showing any symptoms. After some ice and tlc, all the teen wanted to do was sleep.

"All right kiddo, but call me if you need anything," May said as she swept a stray hair away from Peter's sleepy brown eyes. With a sigh, she rose from her seat beside his bed and started to leave the room. Before she shut the door, May turned around to give Peter a reassuring smile.

"Goodnight sweetie, I love you." She turned back around to leave but stopped when she heard Peter call back to her, his voice soft and small.

"I love you too, more than anything." It warmed her heart to hear Peter say such a thing, but his shaking voice concerned her. Something had him worked up. May waited on the doorway a few seconds longer to see if he would say anything more, then glanced back at her nephew. His face was relaxed, eyes were closed, and breathing was steady. Peter was out like a light.

May finally closed Peter's door and padded to her own room across the hall. She was a little worried about her nephew and his strange behavior today; he'd been nervous and jumpy during dinner and after he tripped. However, May chalked it up to teenage stress and decided to ask Peter about it if the odd behavior continued. For the time being, he was peacefully asleep, and soon May was too.

—_—_—_—_the-next-morning_—_—_—_—

Peter woke up feeling like Captain America. At least, this is what he imagined Captain America felt like; strong, confident, and full of energy. Whatever crazy thing had happened yesterday with the ceiling was behind him, and Peter was willing to forget the experience entirely.

Peter sat up in bed and stretched his arms, yawning. It was a Saturday, which meant it was a good day. Peter barely had any homework this weekend, an he and Ned were planning on seeing the new _Star Wars_ movie later.

Peter smiled at the prospects of the new day. Feeling very awake and energize, the teen hopped out of bed and pulled on the his dresser drawer in search of his Chewbacca shirt. But instead of simply opening the drawer, Peter managed to rip it from the dresser and fling it to the ground with no effort whatsoever.

Well this was...odd.

Surprised, Peter simply stared at the drawer and its contents that now littered the floor. He could've sworn he'd barely touched the thing...why did he pull it so far? This was almost as weird as yesterday...

Peter looked up to find that the hole in his ceiling was, in fact, still there. Crap. First he was sticking to walls and now he was throwing solid, wooden drawers across the room with the flick of his wrist. What was happening to him?

Panic coursing through him, Peter leaped toward the mirror to inspect himself. He searched his entire body for some sort of problem, or mutation, or _something_! Any sign that would lead him to the cause of these insane incidences remained invisible. In fact, Peter looked perfectly healthy, in even better shape than he was just days before.

Peter's panic turned into full on hysteria when he realized what was wrong with his head. It was fine; perfectly fine, not a scratch on it. Which was impossible given the cartoon-sized lump he'd received the night before from his freaky fall.

Peter stood and stared at himself in the mirror for a while, all excited plans for the day forgotten. He tried, and failed, to see the same skinny kid he was just last week. He _looked_ more or less the same, but Peter _felt_ completely different. Stronger. More aware. One thought repeatedly rang through his mind; _what the hell is happening to me._

Gingerly, he reached for the fallen drawer and placed it back in the dresser, holding it like and egg the entire time. He spotted his old baseball bat leaning against the dresser, and reached for it. This was just a little experiment, Peter told himself. He was, after all, a bit of a science nerd.

He hypothesized that bending or breaking the bat was certainly impossible. A teenager crumpling solid metal with his bare hands? Honestly, this was just silly. Nevertheless, Peter held the bat in both hands and relied on the fact that his hypotheses were never wrong.

He planted his feet, held the bat out before of him, and pulled. He pulled his hands together and watched in horrific fascination as the bat followed suite. The aluminum bat bent, by the force of Peter's bare hands alone, into a large horseshoe shape, then snapped in half.

Peter let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding, and looked down at the scrap in his hands. When Peter lifted his fingers from the bat remains, he spotted indents in the skewed metal were they were gripping it. He tried to drop them, but the large metal pieces remain stuck to the palms of his hands.

Peter sighed and took a seat on the edge of his bed. His fear had given way to shock, and the teen was forced to accept his new reality. Whatever was happening to him, wherever these insane abilities came from, Peter Parker was going to find out.


	3. Chapter 3

Peter thought the ceiling thing was bad. This was definitely worse.

At least falling from the ceiling wasn't painful. Sure, he'd gotten a little bump on his head, but that had gone away remarkably fast.

New York City is known to by huge, loud, and chaotic to someone with normal senses. Imagine the struggle of a spider-enhanced teenage boy.

Peter Parker was a smart kid, and he had long since deduced that his sudden supernatural abilities originated from one of the experimental spiders that he'd seen on a field trip with Midtown High. The how of these new powers was no longer his problem; it was the _what_. What next? He'd already shown enhanced strength, sight, and the sudden ability to _walk on walls._

Now, Peter was having a bit of a break down on his way to school, thanks to his oh-so-helpful enhanced hearing. Everything was just so _loud_. A car, a bike, shouting, more cars, a fly, people, cars, phones, people, cars, news reports, cars.

It was just too much.

Panicking for what must've been the thousandth time that week, maybe even that morning, Peter ducked into the nearest alleyway and tried to drown out the sounds. He slumped against a graffiti-coated wall, clenched his fists over his head, and began rocking slightly to an internal rhythm. He tried to focus on his own heartbeat; on slowing it down and blocking out the other noises.

Eventually, Peter was able to think clearly once again. His face was red and his eyes were watering because he was scared and frustrated. So frustrated, that he picked up a stray garbage can lid and chucked it at the wall opposite him.

The collision caused a loud, metallic _crash_ , and Peter winced at the assault on his sensitive ears. The lid dented. Fragments of brick crumbled off the wall from the impact.

Amazed and frightened by his strength, Peter let out a resigned sigh and rested his head back on his knees. Why him? Why was he the kid who got turned into a freak? How was he ever supposed to be normal again when he couldn't even walk to school without causing a mess?

He contemplated this and allowed the last angry tears to slide down his cheeks. After a few long minutes of sitting and listening to the sounds around him more intently, Peter was able to grasp how this whole "super hearing" worked. If he blocked things out and focused on his thoughts, the overwhelming sounds became background noise. Yet, he was still able to pinpoint these background noises and catalog their sources in the back of his mind, like some sort of second nature.

Dang it, this freaky spider crap was becoming second nature. Next he'd be setting up webs to catch his next meal.

With that unsettling thought, Peter rose from his alleyway sanctuary and continued on his path to school. He took his time because he was already terribly late; second period was probably half over by now. That was fine, he'd only missed gym and some of English. Peter felt a little bad that he left Ned to suffer through gym class alone, but he figured that a breakdown in an alleyway was better than one in front of his peers.

When Peter entered Midtown School of Science and Technology, he felt an inkling of pride that he could hear Flash get an answer wrong in the chemistry classroom down the hall. Maybe these abilities wouldn't be so bad after all. If only Peter could figure out how to control them.


End file.
